statistical probability of meeting mehttps://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com
Living the book and travel lifeWed, 16 Aug 2017 03:56:18 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngstatistical probability of meeting mehttps://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com
Like Explaining the Color of the Skyhttps://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/like-explaining-the-color-of-the-sky/
https://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/like-explaining-the-color-of-the-sky/#commentsSun, 08 Jan 2017 06:06:18 +0000http://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/?p=88Continue reading Like Explaining the Color of the Sky]]>What does it mean to be happy?

I thought I was happy. I thought I had friends. I thought people liked me. I thought my life was going somewhere.

But, maybe it’s not.

I feel like I’m living a lie.

Anytime I think my life is going great, I take two steps backwards. The way my life is going right now I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself dying alone with nothing but books and twelve cats surrounding me. And I hate cats.

I have to set small goals for myself to accomplish to make the final one not hurt so bad when I don’t make it. And it feels like I’m not going to make it.

I can’t even attempt to dream up my future. All I see is darkness. It surrounds me. Suffocating me until no end is near.

I don’t do anything with my life. When I’m not working or doing endless amounts of schoolwork, I sit in my room in do nothing. I pretend to do something. I’ll have my laptop open or a book laid out, but really I’m just laying on my bed, staring at the ceiling.

Reading doesn’t even bring me joy. The one thing I could count on as an escape from the life I live isn’t there for me anymore.

And that just leaves me with my imagination, which isn’t the best thing. It only just gets my hopes up even more. I’ll create different scenarios in my head of an event I’m looking forward too, but instead of feeling anticipation for something that could possibly come, I just feel disappointment because I know that what I really want to happen just isn’t going to.

People come to me for problems sometimes and I can give them answers that really help them out when I can’t even answer the questions I ask myself; I believe in others when I can’t even believe in myself.

So, how does one become happy?

Like there’s that saying money can’t buy happiness, but what is happiness really?

How does one find happiness?

Is anyone truly happy?

]]>https://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/like-explaining-the-color-of-the-sky/feed/1mlemmenesThe Hunger Games-Deathhttps://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/the-hunger-games-death/
https://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/the-hunger-games-death/#respondWed, 03 Feb 2016 04:02:09 +0000http://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/?p=23Continue reading The Hunger Games-Death]]>I never get a rest. People die every day, there’s no stopping them. They can’t tell their bodies to not shut down for one more day so I can have a day off. It doesn’t work like that. I travel the world collecting the dead to bring to the next destination. I have seen every tragic event from the World Wars to the creating of a new country, Panem. It gets lonely sometimes. Never meeting new people and having someone to talk to. The only time you meet someone is when you collect them. I guess I do get to know some of the people before they pass. But they never get to know me, so it’s a one-sided friendship. Two people did stick with me all of these years from World War II. One was a book thief. The other had hair that remained the color of lemons forever. But, this story isn’t about them. This story is about the girl on fire.
Each and every year, in the country of Panem, is what is known as the Hunger Games. The rules are simple. Each of the twelve districts within Panem must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be placed in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.
For me, this means a busy time of year. You would think that after the wars, I would be used to this sort of thing. Twenty-four compared to thousands a week isn’t that difficult. And it’s not. But it’s a shame when the young have to die young, especially to entertain the Capitol of Panem.
This year is different. Instead of wandering Earth like I normally do, looking for the next death, I decided to watch the reaping. I went to District 12 to start. Majority of the deaths from Panem come from here. They aren’t the fittest, most are too weak from hunger to do much. They have to work in the mines which can be a dangerous place.
I arrive just in time for the reaping, which takes place in the town square, a shame since it’s the only decent place in the district. The speeches were ending, which is a good thing since nobody likes it when people talk too long. Fresh from the Capitol with her white grin, pinkish hair, and spring green suit, Effie Trinket trots to the podium in between two glass balls, one for the boys and the other for the girls, on the makeshift stage in front of the Justice Building.
“Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!” She talks for a bit about what an honor it is to be there and then it is time for the reaping. As usual ladies are first. Effie pulls out a piece of paper from the glass ball with the girls’ names in it and reads it in a clear voice, “Primrose Everdeen!”
I know that last name from somewhere. Oh, wait, it belonged to Mr. Everdeen. He died in a mining accident five years ago. This little girl must be one of his daughters.
A twelve-year-old girl walks with stiff steps towards the stage. She shouldn’t worry; her time has not come yet. Suddenly, a strangled cry erupts from the crowd. “Prim!” It came from a sixteen-year-old girl. She rushes towards the stage and pushes Prim behind her and gasps, “I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!”
There is some confusion on stage. There hasn’t been a volunteer in District 12 in decades and the protocol has become rusty. It takes them a while to figure out what to do and eventually, Prim is being carried off to her mother and the sixteen-year-old is walking up on stage.
“Well, bravo!” gushes Effie. “That’s the spirit of the Games! What’s your name?”
“Katniss Everdeen.” Ah, the other daughter.
“I bet my buttons that was your sister. Don’t want her to steal all the glory, do we? Come on, everybody! Let’s give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!” trill Effie.
Silence follows. Not one person claps. It is the boldest form of dissent they can manage. It says that they do not agree. They do not condone. All of it is wrong.
Then something happens. At first one, then another, then almost every member of the crowd touches the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to Katniss. It is an old and rarely used gesture of District 12; I have seen it at the occasional funeral. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love.
This is my cue to leave. I will see majority of them soon to carry them out. Prim will come a year after them. But I won’t see Katniss for a while. After everyone she loves is gone, then I will visit her.
The question is, what color will everything be at that moment when I come for you? What will the sky be saying? For vast majority of District 12, the sky was gray. Ash filled the sky as bombs rain down on the town. For Prim, it was cloudy with parachutes littering the ground. And as for Katniss, her story is still being written.]]>https://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/the-hunger-games-death/feed/0mlemmenesAdventure is out there-Part Twohttps://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/adventure-is-out-there-part-two/
https://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/adventure-is-out-there-part-two/#respondMon, 02 Nov 2015 03:54:14 +0000http://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/?p=20Continue reading Adventure is out there-Part Two]]>Welcome back. If you’re reading this, that means you liked what you read the first time and want to continue the journey with me. Well, let me tell you, day two was just as rough. We were still jetlagged and so we didn’t want to get up however, the alarm wanted you to get up. It was early in the morning, and we were warm and comfy in our beds, when out of nowhere, a rooster was heard. I shot up out of bed thinking someone was in our room ready to murder us, when really all it was was the alarm Michelle set on her phone. After that, I was wide awake. And all Michelle did was roll over, turn the alarm off and fall asleep. My twin, Morghan, and I don’t like being late and breakfast was approaching, so Morghan takes a pillow and whips it across the room and it hits Michelle just as she is starting to get up. The pillow connects with its target and Michelle falls onto the floor. That was the first funny thing that happened that morning. The next best thing happened soon after.

Michelle was curling her hair and we were going to straighten our hair right after her. However, that didn’t happen, but before we get to that you should know something about the hotel rooms in England. The key that you use to get into the room also turns your power on. You’re supposed to put the key in a slot by the door and it gives your electricity life, but if you don’t have the key, you don’t have power. Well, Michelle finished her hair and unplugged the curling iron from the wall adaptor and our power goes out. The key was in the slot so we should have it, right? But, no, Michelle blew the power out for the entire room. And seeing how we were in a foreign country we didn’t know what to do. I mean how do you get power back into your room without it being a huge problem? We went down to the front desk to let them know that there wasn’t any power and of course, they didn’t understand what we were saying. In America, we say our numbers either two-hundred and three or two “o” three, but over there you need to say two zero three. If you don’t, then they won’t understand you. Once that obstacle was crossed, we were able to start our day.

This is going to be another boring blog. Still jetlagged, we had to endure a bus tour of London. Now you should never put kids with very little sleep on a bus where they will be told historical facts about the town. Chances are they will fall asleep. The motion of the bus tends to be soothing and it relaxes the kids until they are snoozing. Well, that is what happened to majority of us. We picked up our tour guide, Nigel, and our bus driver had to maneuver the winding streets of London.

I couldn’t tell you what I learned that day. Everything was a blur. But I remember seeing Big Ben, Tower Bridge, the twisty bridge that was in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Buckingham Palace, and the changing of the guard. It was all really neat and I recommend you to go but this day was a bus day. We got off the bus to take pictures and got back on the bus for another ten minutes, then got off the bus and then back on. The only thing to entertain us was Nigel’s “Ladies and Gents” after everything he said. And we didn’t get to see much of the city. Almost everything we saw was a repeat of the day before.

Later that night, we went to a pub to have our meal. I don’t even remember what the meal consisted of or if I even enjoyed it. All I knew was that the desert was delicious. After the meal, we were lucky enough to see Wicked perform at the Apollo Theatre. And that was amazing, but I’m always a sucker for musicals.

By the time we left, it was probably around midnight and you would think that the tube would be dead, but no, it was the busiest that I’ve seen in the two days that we were there. And riding that made me want to just curl up in a ball and sleep right in the middle of the car.

Once we got back to the hotel, you would assume that we would get ready for bed and fall asleep the minute our heads hit the pillow. But again, you are wrong. We decide to talk about random things for a long time, and eventually we do fall asleep. This concludes day two of my adventure and it was a tiring one. The next day gets a little bit better as we start to travel outside the city and get into the country.

]]>https://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/adventure-is-out-there-part-two/feed/0mlemmenesEngland and Scotland 018The Quiet Onehttps://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/the-quiet-one/
https://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/the-quiet-one/#respondMon, 31 Aug 2015 16:17:09 +0000http://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/?p=18Continue reading The Quiet One]]>The quiet girl in the corner
Was always thought of as a loner
Preferred one friend by her side
Until the day she shall die
Her best friend was a book
Since others did not look
Like J.K. Rowling, she dreamed to be
Of living in Scotland, she wishes to be free
Escape, she did into her mind
She liked what she did find
A fantasy world hidden in her brain
Where no one can stop her parade with rain
The sun shines brightly there
While she lives in a world without care
Life was difficult for her, you see
No one noticed her, but me]]>https://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/the-quiet-one/feed/0mlemmenesThe Hunger Games-Gale Hawthornehttps://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/the-hunger-games-gale-hawthorne/
https://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/the-hunger-games-gale-hawthorne/#respondThu, 20 Aug 2015 22:05:12 +0000http://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/?p=12Continue reading The Hunger Games-Gale Hawthorne]]>I arrive early to the meadow. I thought I would be late after stopping to trade a squirrel for some bread at the bakery. Trading is illegal, but we do it anyway. There is even a place to do it to; it’s called the Hob, that’s where most of it is done in District 12. It is the only way for us to survive and get the supplies we need. Katniss hasn’t arrived yet, so I sit down and stick an arrow in the loaf of bread as a joke. Everyone needs a laugh on a day like today, the reaping. The Capitol thinks of it as a celebration, but to us it’s a day filled of terror. My name will be in there forty-two times. The odds aren’t in my favor. Suddenly, I hear the rustle of leaves and the breaking of a twig. I turn around and see Katniss emerging out of the woods.
“Hey, Catnip,” I say. I know her real name is Katniss, but the first time I met her, she said her name so quietly that it sounded like Catnip, so that’s what I call her. I hold up the loaf of bread with the arrow in it and say, “Look what I shot.”
She laughs, just what I wanted, and says, “Mm, still warm. What did it cost you?”
“Just a squirrel. Think the old man was feeling sentimental this morning. Even wished me luck.”
“Well, we all feel a little closer today, don’t we? Prim left us a chesse,” Katniss says, pulling it out.
“Thank you, Prim. We’ll have a real feast.” I pluck some blackberries from the bushes around us and mimicking Effie Trinket, the maniacally upbeat woman who arrives each year to read out the names at the reaping, I say, “I almost forgot! Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds-”
“-be ever in your favor!” she finishes with equal verve. We have to joke about it because the alternative is to be scared out of your wits. I pull out my knife and slice the bread. Katniss could be my sister. Straight black hair, olive skin, we even have the same gray eyes. But we’re not related. Every family that works in the mines resemble one another. Our dads worked in the mines together, until an explosion blew them both to bits. Now it’s just me and my mom with my three younger siblings, two brothers and a sister. Katniss and I hunt to provide for both families and we also sign up for the tessera, once for each family member that is granted each year for families in need. But, then your name will be entered once more for each time you sign up for it.
I spread the bread slices with the soft goat cheese and carefully place a basil leaf on each strip while Katniss strips the bushes of their berries. We settle back in a nook in the rocks and feast. The food’s wonderful, with the cheese seeping into the warm bread and the berries bursting in our mouths. Everything would be perfect if this was really a holiday, but instead we have to be standing in the square at two o’clock waiting for the names to be called out. We could run away into the forest. Nobody would come looking for us. They all think that the fence surrounding it is still running, but it’s not.
“We could do it, you know,” I say quietly, saying it out loud.
“What?”
“Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it. If we didn’t have so many kids.” They’re not really our kids, but they might as well be. I have my little siblings and Katniss has Prim, her sister. And you might as well throw in our mothers, too, because how would they live without us? With all of the hunting Katniss and I do, we still don’t have enough to fill our stomachs.
“I never want to have kids,” Katniss says.
“I might. If I didn’t live here,” I respond. And it’s true. If I didn’t live in District 12, were everyone is hungry, I would consider it, especially if Katniss was by my side. Out of all of the girls who throw themselves at me, she is the only one I truly care about.
“But you do,” she says, irritated.
“Forget it,” I snap back.
After a small silence, Katniss asks, “What do you want to do?”
“Let’s fish at the lake. We can leave our poles and gather in the woods. Get something nice for tonight.”
Tonight. After the reaping, everyone is supposed to celebrate. And a lot of people do, out of relief that their children have been spared for another year. But at least two families will pull their shutters, lock their doors, and try to figure out how they will survive the painful weeks to come.
We make out well. The predators ignore us on a day when easier, tastier prey abounds. By late morning, we have a dozen fish, a bag of greens and, best of all, a gallon of strawberries. Katniss found the patch years ago, but I had an idea to string mesh nets around it to keep out the animals.
On the way home, we swing by the Hob, the black market that operates in an abandoned warehouse that once held coal. When they came up with a more efficient system that transported the coal directly from the mines to the trains, the Hob gradually took over the space. Most businesses are closed this time on reaping day, but the black market’s still fairly busy. We easily trade six of the fish for good bread, the other two for salt. Greasy Sae, the bony old woman who sells bowls of hot soup form a large kettle, takes half the greens off our hands in exchange for a couple of chunks of paraffin. We might do a tad better elsewhere, but we make an effort to keep on good terms with Greasy Sae. She’s the only one who can consistently be counted on to buy wild dog. We don’t hunt them on purpose, but if you’re attacked and you take out a dog or two, well, meat is meat. “Once it’s in the soup, I’ll call it beef,” Greasy Sae says with a wink. No one in the Seam would turn up their noses at a good leg of wild dog, but the Peacekeepers who come to the Hob can afford to be a little choosier.
When we finish our business at the market, we go to the back door of the mayor’s house to sell half the strawberries, knowing he has a particular fondness for them and can afford our price. The mayor’s daughter, Madge, opens the door. She’s in Katniss’s year, two years younger than me. Today she’s wearing an expensive white dress, and her blonde hair is done up with a pink ribbon. Reaping Clothes. She doesn’t look that bad, so I say, “Pretty dress.”
Madge shoots me a look, as if trying to see if it’s a compliment. She presses her lips together and replies, “Well, if I end up going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don’t I?”
I’m confused. Is she trying to mess with me or does she really mean it?
“You won’t be going to the Capitol,” I tell her, coolly. My gaze drifts down to a small, circular pin that adorns her dress. Real gold. It could keep a family in bread for months. “What can you have? Five entries? I had six when I was just twelve years old.”
“That’s not her fault,” Katniss says.
“No, it’s no one’s fault. Just the way it is.”
I notice that Madge’s face has become closed off. She hands Katniss the money for the berries and says, “Good luck, Katniss.”
“You, too,” she replies, and the door closes.
We walk toward the Seam in silence. I couldn’t help getting worked up over what Madge said. The probability of her being picked is slim. I hate those people who can afford to live without extra help. The reaping system is unfair, with the poor getting the worst of it. You become eligible for the reaping the day you turn twelve. That year, your name is entered once. At thirteen, twice. And so on and so on until you reach the age of eighteen, the final year of eligibility, when your name goes into the pool seven times. That’s true for every citizen in all twelve districts in the entire country of Panem. Each year, I put my name in five more times in exchange for tesserae for each family member. So, at the age of eighteen, the final year, my name will be entered forty-two times. Katniss, who is sixteen and has been feeding her family, will be in there twenty times. It’s hard not to resent those who don’t have to sign up for tesserae because they have a slim chance of getting picked, unlike those from the Seam.
Katniss and I divide our spoils, leaving two fish, a couple of loaves of good bread, greens, a quart of strawberries, salt, paraffin, and a bit of money for each.
“See you in the square,” she says.
“Wear something pretty,” I say, trying to make a joke, but it comes out flat.
At home, I find a tub of warm water waiting for me. I scrub the dirt off as best as I can. I put on one of my nicest, clean shirts that I can find with pants to go along with it. Once I finish, I help my mother get the others ready, and at one o’clock, we head for the square.
People file in silently and sign in. The reaping is a good opportunity for the Capitol to keep tabs on the population as well. Twelve- through eighteen-year-olds are herded into roped areas marked off by ages, the oldest in the front, like Katniss, the young ones toward the back. Family members line up around the perimeter, holding tightly to one another’s hands. But there are others, too, who have no one they love at stake, or who no longer care, who slip among the crowd, taking bets on the two kids whose names will be drawn. Odds are given on their ages, whether they’re Seam or merchant, if they will break down and weep. Most refuse dealing with the racketeers but carefully, carefully. These same people tend to be informers. The space gets tighter, more claustrophobic as people arrive. The square’s quite large, but not enough to hold District 12’s population of about eight thousand. Latecomers are directed to the adjacent streets, where they can watch the event on screens as it’s televised live by the state.
I find myself standing in a group of eighteens from the Seam. We don’t look at each other. Instead our attention is focused on the temporary stage set up before the Justice Building. It holds three chairs, a podium, and two large class balls, one for the boys and one for the girls. I glance at the one for the boys. Forty-two have my name on them.
Two of the three chairs fill with Madge’s father Mayor Undersee, a tall, balding man, and Effie Trinket, District 12’s escort, fresh form the Capitol with her scary white grin, pinkish hair, and spring green suit. They murmur to each other and then look with concern at the empty seat.
Just as the town clock strikes two, the mayor steps up to the podium and begins to read. It’s the same story every year. He tells of the history of Panem, the country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North American. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained. The result was Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts, which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens. Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games.
The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.
To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the others. The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. All year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle starvation.
“It is both a time of repentance and a time for thanks,” intones the mayor. Then he reads the list of past District 12 victors. In seventy-four years, we have had exactly two. Only one is still alive. Haymitch Abernathy, a paunchy, middle-aged man, who at this moment appears hollering something unintelligible, staggers onto the stage, and falls into the third chair. He’s drunk. Very. The crowd responds with its token applause, but he’s confused and tries to give Effie Trinket a big hug, which she barely manages to fend off.
The mayor looks distressed. Since all of this is being televised, right now District 12 is the laughingstock of Panem, and he knows it. He quickly tries to pull the attention back to the reaping by introducing Effie Trinket.
Bright and bubbly as ever, Effie Trinket trots to the podium and gives her signature, “Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!” Her pink hair must be a wig because her curls have shifted slightly off-center since her encounter with Haymitch. She goes on a bit about what an honor it is to be here, although everyone knows she’s just aching to get bumped up to a better district where they have proper victors, not drunks who molest you in front of the entire nation.
It’s time for the drawing. Effie Trinket says as she always does, “Ladies first!” and crosses to the glass ball with the girls’ names. She reaches in, digs her hand deep into the ball, and pulls out a slip of paper. The crowd draws in a collective breath and then you can hear a pin drop, and I’m feeling nauseous and so desperately hoping that it’s not Katniss.
Effie Trinket crosses back to the podium, smoothes the slip of paper, and reads out the name in a clear voice. And it’s not Katniss.
It’s Prim.
I’m shocked. How could this have happened? Prim is twelve, her name was in there once. She didn’t even take the tesserae. The odds were entirely in her favor. I stand there in silence, like everyone else when a twelve-year-old is picked. Out of the silence I hear a strangled cry, “Prim!” It sounded like Katniss. I see her moving toward the stage, toward her sister. She cries again, “Prim!” And with one sweep of her arm, she pushes Prim behind her.
“I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!” she gasps.
There’s some confusion on the stage. District 12 hasn’t had a volunteer in decades and the protocol has become rusty. In some districts, in which winning the reaping is such a great honor, people are eager to risk their lives, the volunteering is complicated. But in District 12, where the word tribute is pretty much synonymous with the word corpse, volunteers are all but extinct.
“Lovely!” says Effie Trinket. “But I believe there’s a small matter of introducing the reaping winner and then asking for volunteers, and if one does come forth then we, um…” she trails off, unsure of herself.
“What does it matter?” says the mayor with a pained expression. “Let her come forward.”
I start moving toward Katniss and Prim just as Prim starts screaming hysterically. She wraps her skinny arms around Katniss like a vice. Prim screams, “No, Katniss! No! You can’t go!”
I agree with Prim one-hundred percent, but that’s not how it works. Katniss replies, harshly, “Prim, let go. Let go!”
By that time, I have reached the stage and I pull Prim off of Katniss and hold her in my arms, trying to calm her down. I almost lose it, looking at Katniss. This is probably the last time to see her. We should’ve run when we had the chance. I should’ve protected her when I had a chance. “Up you go, Catnip,” I say, trying to keep my voice as steady as possible. I move away from the crowd towards Katniss’s mother. I’m not listening to what happens next. All I’m doing is trying to hold it together. Once I give Prim to her mother, I turn back around.
“…Let’s give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!” trills the end of Effie Trinket’s speech.
The crowd greets this with silence. We all know Prim, and most of us knew her father, or know her from the Hob. We do not agree with what is happening. We do not condone. Then something unexpected happens. At first one, then another, then almost every member of the crowd, including me, touches the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to Katniss. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love.

Some of the text is from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

]]>https://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/the-hunger-games-gale-hawthorne/feed/0mlemmenesAdventure is out there- Part Onehttps://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/adventure-is-out-there-part-one/
https://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/adventure-is-out-there-part-one/#respondThu, 20 Aug 2015 21:59:07 +0000http://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/?p=10Continue reading Adventure is out there- Part One]]>I was given a chance of a lifetime. Not many people are granted with the same opportunity as I was. For my whole life I have wanted to travel the world, to experience things that aren’t normal to me, and to stretch my comfort zone. My school gave me the opportunity was to travel to England through Explorica, a site that creates trips to different countries at reasonable prices, and I took it. This was my first airplane, first time away from my parents for an extended period of time, and the first time on foreign land. However, it was something that I will never forget.
Things happen for a reason. Before that trip, I didn’t know any of my traveling buddies. Well, I have spoken to some of them before, but I still didn’t really know them. My twin and I signed up to room with one other person from our grade. She had traveled to Japan the year before, so we figured she would know a little bit about what to do in this kind of unfamiliar territory. We spent half a year waiting in anticipation for the day we would leave, and finally, it arrived.
Waiting in an airport is torcher. You drive a distance to a place where you have to wait an obscene amount of time to board a plane where you again have to sit for hours until you reach your destination. All you want is to apparate like Harry Potter. So, we met at our school at nine o’clock in the morning and made our way to the airport, where we waited. And we waited. And finally, we got to board our plane. But, here’s the catch, we had a layover in New Jersey before we could even cross the sea. And there we waited some more before we could sit on the plane for six hours to fly to London. And after all of that waiting, we have finally arrived.
You would think that sleeping on an airplane would be easy, right? All you have to do is close your eyes and eventually you would drift off to sleep. But it’s not as easy as it would seem. So, most of us descended the plane sleepy eyed, forced to start the next day. After we got our luggage, we walked out into the waiting room to meet our tour guide, Alex. And once the introductions were made, we had to wait some more because the other part of our group didn’t arrive yet. They were from Indiana.
People aren’t always as they seem. I want you to remember that because it will come up again in the next couple of posts about this trip. There were three kids from Indiana and two teachers that were joining our group of twenty-two, and once they arrived in the airport, it was time for all of us to start our day.
Day one was tough. You can’t expect teenagers to be able to go two days without sleep. So, as you can imagine it was hard to remember what we all did that day. We went to our hotel right away from the airport, hoping we could get into our rooms to freshen up. However, the rooms weren’t ready yet, so we had to settle for dropping our stuff off in a meeting room and using the restrooms to freshen up. Once everyone was as good as they could be, Alex told us a little about how things will be done on this trip and then we were off.
Alex took us on a walking tour around London. We took the tube into a more central location and made our way around. We got to see Trafalgar Square, Thames River, and Chinatown. But, like I said before, I don’t really remember much about that day. It was my first time overseas and I was jetlagged. However, I do remember this, London was gorgeous. It was very cold. Something we weren’t used to right away. But, it is a city that I would want to return to someday.
That night was a bit interesting for us. We received a fish and chips dinner, something I don’t even remember and somehow we ended up back in our rooms ready to hit the hay. My twin and I roomed with someone in our class that we knew but weren’t the greatest of friends with, so it was a bit awkward. Michelle was her name and she doesn’t care much for awkward situations because they make her uncomfortable. So, what does she do? She starts to reenact the YouTube video “How animals eat their food”. After that we became best friends and this trip didn’t seem so scary.
This concluded the first day. And the second came almost too quickly. However, you will have to wait for that. For right now I want you to remember some parts of this day because they will come in handy for the rest of this trip as well as the next.]]>https://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/adventure-is-out-there-part-one/feed/0England and Scotland 072mlemmenesThe Hunger Games-Primrose Everdeenhttps://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/08/10/the-hunger-games-primrose-everdeen/
https://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/2015/08/10/the-hunger-games-primrose-everdeen/#respondMon, 10 Aug 2015 22:38:00 +0000http://statisticalprobabilityofmeetingme.wordpress.com/?p=6Continue reading The Hunger Games-Primrose Everdeen]]>I wake up in a fright. Every year I have the same dream of Katniss being picked for the games, but this year is different. This year I dreamed that my name was the one that was pulled from the bowl. This will be the first year with my name in the pool and I am scared. I know there isn’t a high probability of me being picked, but you are never safe, especially if you are a twelve year old. Those are usually the first to die. I switch beds to lie down next to my mom, usually I sleep by Katniss, but after a dream like that I need to be by my mom. Sleep is about to take me once more, when I hear the creaking of Katniss’s bed and I know that she is getting up to go hunting with Gale. We live in the Seam, District 12’s poorest place. Now, District 12 is already pretty poor, for being coal miners, but the Seam is the poorest of the poor. We don’t have a great amount of food, but we get by with the meat Katniss gets and the milk and cheese from my goat. I have a few hours left before I need to get up to get ready for the reaping, so I enjoy it because it may be my last. After dosing off, I hear my mom get up from beside me and she says to me with a shake of the shoulder, “Prim, it’s time to get up. We have to get you ready for the reaping.”

“Do I have to?” I ask.

“Yes. Come on; let’s go find something for breakfast.”

Mom climbs out of bed and I follow her out and into the kitchen. We find some berries and cheese to eat, which we consumed in silence. Then, mom prepares a tub of hot water for me to bathe in. Since it’s the Seam, we don’t have showers or bathtubs like the rest of Panem, which makes it harder to bathe every day. I have dirt under my nails and a thin layer of it on my skin, otherwise I’m pretty clean, so it doesn’t take long for me to get clean. By the time I’m done, I get out and dry off, then I go to my room where I see that mom has laid out Katniss’s first reaping outfit for me. Next to it, I see that she has also laid out her blue dress for Katniss. I quickly change into my clothes, which are a little big for me, and I tuck the shirt into the skirt.

Once I finish, mom comes in and starts to braid my hair.Just as she is finishing up, Katniss walks in after a morning of hunting. She has some fish and greens with her for the celebration afterwards, which she sets on the table in the kitchen. Mom tells Katniss that there is water waiting for her to wash up, but she replies with a quick okay and a cold shoulder. After dad died in a mining accident, Mom started to shut down. She could’ve had a life of luxury, or as much as you can get in twelve, but instead she fell in love with him and is now spending the rest of her life in the Seam. Mom couldn’t handle it once he died. Some days she wouldn’t leave her bed. All of us were withering away from the days without food. Finally, Katniss started to hunt, the way dad used to do. She started bringing home a little bit of meat, but it still wasn’t much for the three of us. Until she met Gale. Once Gale came into our lives, they became better. With both of them hunting, we were able to double the amount of food that was coming in, and they were able to trade for it, too, at the Hob, the black market. Eventually, mom started to come out of her stupor and she started to become the healer of District 12 again, like she used to do. But, no matter what she did, Katniss never forgave her.

Once Katniss finishes up, she goes to put on her dress and mom does her hair too. I sneak in to look at her. She doesn’t look like the rest of us, with her brown hair and dark skin, but she is still pretty. Both, me and mom, have light skin with blond hair, nothing like the rest of the Seam.

“You look beautiful ,” I say in a hushed voice.

“And nothing like myself,” she replies. She turns around and hugs me. It breaks her heart knowing that I worry so much about her. Katniss has a higher probability than me of being picked, with her name being in there twenty times from signing up for tessera, so I worry less about myself and more about her. As she starts to pull away from the hug, she says, “Tuck in your tail little duck.” I didn’t notice that my blouse started to come loose in the back, but she tucks it in for me. I giggle and give her a small “Quack.”

“Quack yourself,” she says with a light laugh. “Come on, let’s eat.”

The fish and greens are cooking in the stew for tonight and we decide to save the strawberries and bakery bread for the meal as well. Instead we drink some goat milk and eat the rough bread from the tessera grain, but nobody has an appetite.
At one o’clock, we head for the square. Attendance is mandatory unless you’re on death’s door. This evening, officials will come around and check to see if this is the case. If not, you’ll be imprisoned.

It’s too bad, really, that they hold the reaping in the square- one of the few places in District 12 that can be pleasant. The square’s surrounded by shops, and on public market days, especially if there’s good weather, it has a holiday feel to it. But today, despite the bright banners hanging on the buildings, there’s an air of grimness. The camera crews, perched like buzzards on rooftops, only add to the effect.

People file in silently and sign in. The reaping is a good opportunity for the Capitol to keep tabs on the population as well. Twelve- through eighteen-year-olds are herded into roped areas marked off by ages, the oldest in the front, like Katniss, the young ones toward the back. Family members line up around the perimeter, holding tightly to one another’s hands. But there are others, too, who have no one they love at stake, or who no longer care, who slip among the crowd, taking bets on the two kids whose names will be drawn. Odds are given on their ages, whether they’re Seam or merchant, if they will break down and weep. Most refuse dealing with the racketeers but carefully, carefully. These same people tend to be informers. The space gets tighter, more claustrophobic as people arrive. The square’s quite large, but not enough to hold District 12’s population of about eight thousand. Latecomers are directed to the adjacent streets, where they can watch the event on screens as it’s televised live by the state.

I find myself standing in a group of twelves from the Seam. We exchange quick looks of fear, as well as reassurance, then quickly refocus our attentions on the temporary stage set up before the Justice Building. It holds three chairs, a podium, and two large class balls, one for the boys and one for the girls. I stare at the paper slips in the girls’ ball. Only one has Primrose Everdeen written on it, but twenty of them have Katniss Everdeen.

Two of the three chairs fill with Mayor Undersee, a tall, balding man and Effie Trinket, District 12’s escort, fresh form the Capitol with her scary white grin, pinkish hair, and spring green suit. They murmur to each other and then look with concern at the empty seat.

Just as the town clock strikes two, the mayor steps up to the podium and begins to read. It’s the same story every year. He tells of the history of Panem, the country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North American. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained. The result was Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts, which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens. Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games.

The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.
To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the others. The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. All year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle starvation.

“It is both a time of repentance and a time for thanks,” intones the mayor. Then he reads the list of past District 12 victors. In seventy-four years, we have had exactly two. Only one is still alive. Haymitch Abernathy, a paunchy, middle-aged man, who at this moment appears hollering something unintelligible, staggers onto the stage, and falls into the third chair. He’s drunk. Very. The crowd responds with its token applause, but he’s confused and tries to give Effie Trinket a big hug, which she barely manages to fend off.

The mayor looks distressed. Since all of this is being televised, right now District 12 is the laughingstock of Panem, and he knows it. He quickly tries to pull the attention back to the reaping by introducing Effie Trinket.

Bright and bubbly as ever, Effie Trinket trots to the podium and gives her signature, “Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!” Her pink hair must be a wig because her curls have shifted slightly off-center since her encounter with Haymitch. She goes on a bit about what an honor it is to be here, although everyone knows she’s just aching to get bumped up to a better district where they have proper victors, not drunks who molest you in front of the entire nation.

It’s time for the drawing. Effie Trinket says as she always does, “Ladies first!” and crosses to the glass ball with the girls’ names. She reaches in, digs her hand deep into the ball, and pulls out a slip of paper. The crowd draws in a collective breath and then you can hear a pin drop, and I’m feeling nauseous and so desperately hoping that it’s not Katniss.

Effie Trinket crosses back to the podium, smoothes the slip of paper, and reads out the name in a clear voice. And it’s not Katniss.

It’s me.

At first I don’t move. How could they pick me? I had one slip of paper out of a thousand. Maybe I heard it wrong. But, then, everyone is looking at me, so I know that it was me that was chosen. I swallow down my fear and make my way up to the stage. My hands are clenched tightly at my sides as I stiffly walk past the others to the stage. Suddenly, I hear a cry from the crowd, “Prim!” A few seconds later I hear it again, only this time closer, “Prim!” With one sweep of her arm, Katniss pushes me behind her, just as I was about to mount the steps.

“I volunteer!” She gasps. “I volunteer as tribute!”

There’s some confusion on the stage. District 12 hasn’t had a volunteer in decades and the protocol has become rusty. In some districts, in which winning the reaping is such a great honor, people are eager to risk their lives, the volunteering is complicated. But in District 12, where the word tribute is pretty much synonymous with the word corpse, volunteers are all but extinct.

“Lovely!” says Effie Trinket. “But I believe there’s a small matter of introducing the reaping winner and then asking for volunteers, and if one does come forth then we, um…” she trails off, unsure of herself.

“What does it matter?” says the mayor with a pained expression. “Let her come forward.”

I start screaming hysterically and wrap my arms around Katniss, not wanting to let go, and yell, “No, Katniss! No! You can’t go!”

“Prim, let go,” she says harshly, “Let go!”

I feel someone pulling me from behind, ripping me off of Katniss. I hear Gale speak in my ear trying to calm me down as he picks me up in his arms. Then, in a voice that he is fighting to keep steady he says, “Up you go, Catnip.” And he carries me away to my mother. I don’t hear or see what else goes on because of my tears. When I can finally look at the stage, I notice that everyone around us are touching the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holing it out to Katniss. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love.